Thursday, July 21, 2016

Tonight Selah June got her first taste of presidential electioneering.  Here we are watching the last night of the 2016 Republican National Convention.

Without a mutual interest in public life, Jeremy and I would have never met.  He’s at the convention, and I’m watching it from afar.

I’ve been thinking a lot while he’s been away. I’m marveling every single day at Selah June’s beauty, her wit, her smile, her spoken words, her laughter, her singing, her tender heart, her fierce will, her loyalty, her joy, her sensitivity, her care for her family, and her adventurous spirit.  She’s not even two years old, and I know her inside and out.  She feels like an extension of me – one I couldn’t help create, one I don’t deserve to call my own, but one who will always have my whole heart.

I’m really concerned about the tough world in which we live.  It feels divided and terrorized.  And it feels like a terribly difficult environment for women.  The choices are seemingly abundant, but they are weighted down with real social determinism and personal consequences.  I want to be her mother first and foremost but also her teacher and her guide.  I find myself listening to Ivanka Trump at the Republican National Convention talk about equal pay for equal work and affordable childcare, and I can’t believe my ears.  This is the Republican nominee’s priority?  None of the speakers have said anything about this issue at all.  The platform is more socially conservative than it has been in many decades.

Its so surreal, and I’m currently so stretched. She is my miracle, and it’s going to take a miracle to be everything she needs me to be in this crazy world.